FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 the tide. Lastly, the line must be allowed to run out slowly and neither 

 checked nor thrown overboard in coils. Visitors to Cornwall have 

 sometimes been prejudiced against these leads because their proper use 

 has to be learnt, but they are the best for the purpose, particularly, as 

 already explained, where several lines are used from the same boat. 



The pollack must be played on this tackle as on the driftline. As has 

 been said, the ordinary way is to fight it inch by inch. An alternative 

 plan of giving the fish its head, with plenty of slack line, has also been 

 described. Either is likely to answer, but anything in the nature of com- 

 promise between the two, that is to say allowing the fish to reach the 

 rocks and keeping a tight line on it as well, is sure to end in disaster, 

 as the pollack will merely cut the line against the edges of the mussel 

 shells which decorate the front door of its retreat. 



Pollack, which are northern fish, are caught all along the Atlantic 

 coast of the northern states of America. In the bays of Cape Breton Island 

 and elsewhere in Nova Scotia, they run up to twenty pounds and are to 

 be caught by railing with red files or indiarubber baits. Mr Ross, famous 

 as the captor of the first Canadian tuna on rod and line (an exploit fully 

 described elsewhere in these pages) used to hook them from his boat 

 close to the lighthouse in St Ann Bay and then land on the beach and 

 play them from the shore. They averaged sixteen pounds, and smaller 

 pollack are rarely seen in those waters. The best of this sport was during 

 the first half of July. In August the fish go to the bottom and no longer 

 take artificial bait. They are then said to take mussel freely. 



BREAM. 



The sea breams, red or black, furnish some of the best fishing in the 

 sea. With us, it is true, they run to no great weight. A bream of four pounds 

 makes a good fight on a light driftline, and that is the most that can be 

 expected even down in Cornwall, where (as also at times off the Sussex 

 coast) these fish are at their best. More often one catches " ballard," 

 the name given by the Cornish fishermen to half-grown bream of a pound 

 or two, and more commonly still innumerable " chad," or baby bream, 

 whose multitudinous rabble are the vermin of the pollack grounds, rivalling 

 even the squid in the maddening persistence with which they nibble and 

 suck at the bait until it is useless. Fortunately these chad are an excellent 

 bait for big pollack, being not only bright and attractive, but also so tough 

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